Magic Academy (A Fantasy New Adult Romance) (28 page)

Before Firia could respond, she saw
him.

Sat against the wall, one of the senior
students tended to him, his arm hanging limply by his side as he grit
his teeth together in apparent pain.

“Oh no,” Firia murmured,
but it was mostly to herself. She was already sprinting away from her
friend, her eyes wide. Both apprehension and relief warred within
her.

It could have been so much worse than
pain.

“It’ll take a while to heal
properly,” remarked the woman tending to Mae’lin, though
both the elves turned their attention to Firia as she ran up.

Mae’lin’s grimace melted
away as he looked up and saw her. “You weren’t hurt were
you?” he asked, worried for her despite his own condition,
obviously the more pressing.

“Of course not,” she
scoffed, kneeling at his side, her hand going to his uninjured
shoulder. “This is what you get for being early, Mae’lin.”

The lanky elf couldn’t help but
grin as the student finished tying his arm up in a sling. “Usually
it just gets me the first pudding, right off the top,” he
replied as Ala’nase came up, joining the other two.

“Nobody likes a man who comes too
early, Mae’lin, take notes now ahead of time,” replied
the nearly out-of-breath Ala’nase.

Firia rolled her eyes as she pushed
herself off her knees. “I don’t know what they’re
going to do about exams with so many people injured…”

The senior student finished her job
then rose up, brushing down her sleeves. “Only one student was
injured so bad it seems he’ll have to leave the academy for the
time being,” they remarked before peering about. “And it
seems he was the one responsible for the fiasco to begin with.”
With a roll of their eyes she said, “Foolish first-years,”
as she began to walk away. “Dabbling in things they don’t
understand.”

As Firia’s nose crinkled she
stared down at Mae’lin. “Hey, did you see who did this?”

With some help from her, he rose up a
bit shakily. Though the tall elf seemed more anxiously startled than
physically injured. “Only a glimpse. He wasn’t one of the
students I knew,” he remarked, his damaged limb dangling in its
sling as he cradled it. “Soon after the creature rose up,
things went flying, people went running and… well, someone
tripped. I tried to help him, but then I got hit with a table,”
he remarked with a wince.

“Could be worse,” remarked
Ala’nase, “could’ve gotten hit by the thing
itself.”

Remembering the claws it sported, that
did indeed seem the more serious threat, and Firia nodded.

“Well, you’re safe now. Ala
and I took it down.” Firia grinned mischievously.

Mae’lin looked at her with humour
in his eyes, until… “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, she is,” replied
Ala’nase. “She’s got a real death wish.”

“I thought it was a test,”
Firia responded, her body pressing in against the larger elf’s
form, her hand surreptitiously slipping into his.

“Some test,” he remarked,
looking at her with wide eyes. Though when he squeezed her hand and
smiled, she could see the pride there, if tinged with a bit of
fright. “That’s amazing though… wow. Wow!”
He shook his head. “I wish I could’ve helped.”

“It wasn’t all it’s
cracked up to be,” interjected Ala’nase, quite blasé
about the whole thing.

“Yea, we… kind of almost
got kicked out because of it.”

Mae’lin actually recoiled at the
news. “Almost kicked out for… saving everyone?” He
seemed rather disbelieving as they began to move along. “That’s
insane, Firia! I mean… I understand not wanting to encourage
everyone to follow in your footsteps and tackle giant, roaming
monsters, but…”

“Well we’re not kicked out,
are we? So just be thankful for small favours and some kindred
spirits who would rather I not fail in this place, I guess.”
Firia clasped his hand tighter, her body subtly moving against his.
“I should get you back to your room.”

Mae’lin pressed back against her,
and she noticed he couldn’t help but smile affectionately.
“Thanks,” he said softly. “I heard mention they’d
give us the rest of the day off to recuperate… generous, huh?”

“Yeah, they’re practically
saints,” said Ala’nase, pushing on ahead. “I’ll
catch you two lovebirds later then. No point in being a third-wheel!”
She waved over her shoulder as she headed off outside.

Firia thought she’d never leave
and a smile graced her lips as she began tugging Mae’lin
towards his dorm room. “I’m really glad you’re
okay, but you know… we’re going to have to study a lot
harder to make sure you’re up to snuff.”

With a laugh, Mae’lin grinned a
bit bashfully as they made their way to the residences and climbed
their way up. “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think
I could’ve kept my enthusiasm going this long as is. It’s
a little scary how much work it takes to succeed here. Especially
after all the work it took just to get
in
here,” he said
as they opened the door to his room.

“Just another benefit of being
poor, I guess,” Firia teased as she closed the door behind
them. Her heart thudded as she looked over him. He was like an
injured fawn, and she just wanted to coddle him. Nurse him back to
health.

She didn’t know why. She’d
never truly felt an emotion like this prior, and even her fear for
her father’s life wasn’t entirely comparable.

It was as if she’d been shown
just how fragile her mortality is.

How fragile his mortality was.

She had no way of knowing the future,
of knowing what might happen to them, but she knew of the genuine
affection she had for him. The true excitement he made her feel. He
was her friend, someone she could trust and rely upon, but he was
something more.

Something she never figured she could
have.

Firia lifted herself up on her tiptoes
and pressed her lips to his, her arm snaking around his neck and
pulling his head to hers. Passion poured out of her as she reveled in
the fact that they were both there, alive and alone.

Mae’lin had but the one arm to
wrap around her in return, but he held her tight with it, meeting her
lips with his own intensity.

He was such a gentle, considerate man,
yet she could feel the heat of desire beneath the surface as their
lips met. Feel the excitement that ran through him as they shared the
private moment in his bed chambers that they’d never had
before.

Academy life had consumed them whole,
devoured all their time, their energies, so it was such a sweet
relief to take the little moments for each other. To steal away from
the nonstop race through the ranks of the academy and revel in one
another.

It wasn’t the sort of fire she
had with Varuj; it was its own thing. Different, but she dared not
contrast them.

This was the affection she should crave
and seek out. The innocent and honest lust between two students of
the Academy. Even though he was an elf, even though there were some
that looked down on him for being with her, he didn’t care.

All he wanted was her, and her blood
began to warm to him.

With each passing moment she became
more and more wrapped up in his body, in the sensation of his mouth
toying with hers. All of the sweet, youthful seduction made her heart
patter and her body squirm.

Without realizing it, she had put so
much of her weight against him, her squirming causing the lanky elf
to fall back atop his bed with her in tow.

Far from being a hard landing, they hit
upon the soft mattress comfortably, and Mae’lin gave little
more than a soft “oomph” of a noise as he held her with
his one good arm.

It did, however, break their kiss, and
she looked into his wide, elven eyes. The sparkle of affection so
prominent, unmistakable. There were no lies in his gaze; he was true
and honest, and his affection for her was no less so.

“People will be so upset when
they find out about us for sure,” he remarked, a hint of
amusement in his voice just before he kissed her lips again with a
moist smecking sound.

“We’re used to being social
pariahs,” she reminded him between the flurry of mouths and
tongues. She didn’t give a shit what anyone would say about
them.

This was something real.

Something good.

Something more than she could ever hope
to have with Varuj.

She shifted uncomfortably at the
unbidden reminder of the demon, trying to force the dark thoughts of
his abandonment away. They couldn’t interfere with her
relationship with Mae’lin anymore. She was finally free to like
someone without being torn in five directions, so why couldn’t
she just enjoy this?

His hand rubbed over her back, through
the magician robes she wore, stopping above her waist. The curiously
handsome Mae’lin paused though, gave her a few more soft kisses
then asked gently, “Are you okay?” He’d sensed her
turmoil somehow, and looked to her with those big, elvish eyes of his
to try and discern what was wrong, as if reading tea leaves.

She was always flushed, but now guilt
twisted with her arousal.

She wanted him. Surely she did. He made
her feel loved. It was a safe and comforting feeling that she craved,
but she couldn’t deny her longing for the absent demon.

Her eyelashes fluttered down and she
forced a smile, enjoying how numb her lips felt from his mouth. “Yea.
Just worried we’ll be caught is all.”

Mae’lin gave her an understanding
smile as his hand stroked comfortingly along her spine. “It’ll
be okay,” he remarked, his voice a bit lower from their long
make-out session. “We should get back to studying if we want to
keep doing well anyhow.”

He shifted, and she could feel it, the
bulge of arousal in his loins. She’d felt it before with Varuj,
and felt it again then with Mae’lin, though he was so gentle
and understanding as he shifted so they could both sit upon the bed.
“So where should we start today?” he asked with a bright
smile.

How could he so easily shift focus?
Even she was having issues with her hazy thinking, and she licked her
lips thoughtfully. She tasted him there and she longed for more, but
something stopped her.

Why couldn’t she just get over
Varuj? He was gone! She might never see him again, and she’d be
better off because of it! All he did was confuse her and make her
feel things she never wanted to feel.

“Probably at something that
doesn’t require much writing,” she finally said with a
sigh.

“That probably means we should
work on more writing,” he said with a cheeky grin before
breaking into a laugh as he pulled out one of their books with his
good hand.

The days were going by so quickly,
despite her conflicted feelings for Mae’lin, the nonstop
treadmill of classes, coursework, and study keeping Firia busy both
day and night. Though the growing companionship between her and
Mae’lin was a balm to her, soothing the stresses and anxieties
of the academy.

After the first class of the day, Firia
was surprised to find herself walking alone. Neither of her usual
companions had joined her afterwards, though for Mae’lin it
wasn’t particularly odd.

The eager elf often went ahead to
secure them study materials, a seat in class, or lunch quickly so
that they’d have no waiting to be done. She couldn’t
figure out how he did it even, the tricky fellow.

As she wound her way through the
campus, however, she came to a spot where she heard something odd.
The sound of whispering carried far, further than a lower tone,
though whatever conspirators chattered away seemed unaware of that
fact.

Firia was not, by nature, a nosy
individual, though something seemed so familiar about the two voices,
and they came from the all-too-familiar nook in the gardens where so
much had happened in her time attending the academy.

She held her breath as she moved
nearer, simple curiosity edging her forward. Her hair had grown long
since she started the Academy, and it was pulled into a high
ponytail, letting her hear a bit better.

“What do you take me for?”
came a sharp voice, and Firia recognized it instantly after drawing
close. It was nearly impossible to mistake Ala’nase for anyone
else when she was scolding someone. “No way, find someone else
for your twisted little–”

She was cut off by another, gruffer
voice. “Think about it. You know we work well together,
remember–” The male’s voice, so familiar, yet she
couldn’t place it right away, was too cut off as Ala’nase
interjected again.

“I remember a lot. I remember how
you cast me off pretty damn quick after we got here. So you can think
about me kicking your ass if you try this shit again!”

Firia heard her friend stomping off,
and had to scurry to get back onto the path to avoid getting
discovered. Though when she rounded the corner of the building again,
she saw Ala’nase approaching, book clutched to her chest as she
looked perfectly fine. As if nothing in the world were wrong.

“Hey,” she said, her usual
voice, her usual manner.

That was… odd. “Hey. You
disappeared after class,” Firia chided, though she kept trying
to place the man’s voice.

“Elf-lady troubles,” she
said in that same dry-humour she always remarked. “You wouldn’t
understand.” Her bright eyes travelled over to the center of
the courtyard and she remarked, “Another big gathering. Wonder
what it is this time?”

Any sense of alarm Firia might have
felt instantly faded, when she saw the people weren’t running
or looking alarmed at all. Instead they seemed to be interested in
something going on by the main gates.

“I really, really hope it’s
not another trick to lure us in, only to kick us out when we prove
how awesome we are,” Firia quipped as she moved closer. “And
you know you can talk to me, right? I mean… you know all about
my human troubles.”